The Jefferson Parish Housing Authority is recalling about two dozen recently issued Section 8 housing vouchers, including some from people who have already secured apartments. Executive Director Juan Patterson acknowledged the recall will be painful.

"People waited for years to get vouchers," Patterson said. "Then you've been out there searching for a house, and you finally found one and you got the owner to agree to one."

The federally funded Section 8 program subsidizes private housing for low-income tenants, by paying a portion of monthly rent obligations directly to landlords. The authority was subsidizing 4,664 units with Section 8 vouchers through April, and Patterson said there are about 10,000 people on the waiting list.

The recall is necessary, Patterson said, because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is reclassifying most of the authority's $10 million in restricted net assets. That's the reserve account that the authority uses to make up for funding shortfalls in Section 8 program.

More than $8 million in the reserve account has been deemed as "notes payable" to HUD, Patterson said, leaving only $1.8 million for the Section 8 program. Patterson said the action results from HUD policy changes on excess funding.

"I don't think it was error at all," Patterson said. "There have been changes in regulations governing how you account for funds in the Section 8 program."

Patterson did not specify which regulations led to the change, and HUD officials would not comment. Congress appears to have mandated the change as part of the 2014 appropriations process.

Before the accounting change, Patterson said, the authority held enough reserves to fund the maximum 4,730 vouchers for about three years. Also, he said, additional vouchers could have been issued as people left the program.

Now the authority must halt issuing any new vouchers and recall some existing ones just to make it through the year, Patterson said. "We actually have to let the attrition reduce the number of vouchers we are supporting," he said.